WonderWork

My team and I wrote the business plan for WonderWork when we were running Smile Train. It was supposed to be a solution to Smile Train’s biggest problem: we had too much money.

As Smile Train approached its 10th year, our cleft surgeries had plateaued. But our fundraising kept growing. This created a yearly surplus of tens of millions of dollars, then hundreds of millions of dollars of unused donations that kept getting bigger and bigger. I started being concerned about our surplus around 2006 when it was around $50 million. During the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 we assumed the surplus would go down considerably, but it actually got bigger, and passed the $100 million mark in 2009. I personally felt it was unethical and dishonest to raise money we didn’t need and might never spend. And it was unfair to donors who expected their donations to be spent on surgeries – not sitting in a bank gathering dust.

As the person who signed all of our fundraising letters (tens of millions a year) and who met thousands of donors, I was horrified at the idea of amassing a large surplus of unused donations while I was asking donors for more money. I knew our donors would be shocked and disappointed if they ever found out we were doing this. I also knew that the need for surgery was sky high in developing countries. By offering new kinds of surgery we could put all of these surplus donations to good use and help provide tens of millions of additional surgeries. In my opinion, this massive surplus of unused donations, which was resulting from our success at solving the problem of clefts, was the opportunity of a lifetime.

My team and I did a lot of research and found other miracle surgeries – like cleft surgery – that can change a child’s life for very little money. We found a $500 burn surgery that can rebuild a child who’s been severely burned. A $250 surgery that can give a crippled child the chance to walk and run for the first time. And a surgery that can give blind children and adults their eyesight back in as little as 5 minutes and for as little as $25.

In 2010, when the surplus of unused donations reached $150,000,000 we tried to expand Smile Train’s mission by adding these three simple, inexpensive life-changing surgeries. Our plans were to grow our Smile Train surgeries from 100,000 a year to one million a year. Our staff was energized. Our 1,500 partner hospitals were excited and grateful. Even our lawyers loved it and they figured out how we could use donations for cleft surgeries for other kinds of surgeries. Everyone loved this idea.

Everyone except my co-founder, Charles Wang. He hated it. He made us stop all our plans and ordered us to “let the money pile up.” I was in shock. A few months later Wang secretly hired Smile Train’s own lawyer, filled the Smile Train Board with his personal employees, bribed an independent Smile Train director, and then forced me and my entire senior management team out of Smile Train without cause.

After a few months of feeling sorry for ourselves, we dusted ourselves off and decided to create a surgical new charity called WonderWork in 2011. We used the business plan we developed at Smile Train.

We would never have been able to launch WonderWork without the help and support of the following people.

My dad, Joseph E. Mullaney, former Vice Chairman of Gillette, was WonderWork’s very first donor. His generous, major donations and unwavering support helped us get WonderWork up and running. Joe and my Mom Rosemary were major donors of Smile Train and Joe was also a Founding member of the Smile Train Board of Governors. For $1 dollar a year Joe acted as a Smile Train Ambassador and hosted major Smile Train program events all over the world including Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan and China. After Wang’s takeover, Joe immediately halted all donations to Smile Train and removed Smile Train from his Will and switched his support to WonderWork. He was just one of hundreds of major donors who left Smile Train after Wang’s takeover and switched their support to WonderWork.

Martin and Marianne Haefner provided us with an extremely generous, large start-up grant to get WonderWork up and running. We knew both Martin and Marianne very well because they and Martin’s father were Smile Train’s largest donors. Immediately after Wang took over Smile Train they halted all support for Smile Train and thankfully helped us. We would never have been able to start WonderWork without their help and if we hadn’t, 250,000 blind, burned and crippled children and adults would still be waiting for surgery.

Bill and Joanne Conway gave us a very generous, large start-up grant that helped us launch WonderWork. We knew Bill and Joanne well because they too were major donors of Smile Train and Bill was also a Founding member of the Smile Train Board of Governors. They too halted all donations to Smile Train after Wang took it over and thankfully started helping us.

Clark Kokich and Lisa Strain gave us a very generous, large start-up grant at the very beginning of our efforts to launch WonderWork. They too were major Smile Train donors and they not only stopped donating to Smile Train after Wang took it over they removed Smile Train from their Will.

Ann Ziff gave WonderWork a very large donation and all kinds of additional support when we started out. She too was a major Smile Train donor and the first Chairman of The Smile Train.

Hundreds of major donors to Smile Train who knew me and my team very well, came to our rescue when we launched WonderWork and helped us get up and running. This included: D’Ette Fowlkes, El and Betty Richard, Victor and Cynthia Mitchell, Alan Parker and his Oak Foundation, Bob Wishnew, Sharon McCollam, Ken and Vickie French, Karen and Ginny Hakansson, Steven and Janice Morford, Joe O’Donnell, Diana and Rafael Vinoly, Garret Moran, Robert Sanders, Renee Harbers, Adrea Heebe, Jack Teeters, Maurits Shouten, Glenn and Beryl Polin, Lisa Bertani, David and Dru Garcia, Larry and Judy Howard, Bob and Kathy Egbert, Dr. Major Shekar, Steve Levitt, Janet Carrus, Richard and Kat Price, Joe Cartolano, Frank and Jeanne Trainer, Paul and Mary Helmer, Gary and Joan Nickander, Chermaine Bell, Gene and Cathy Arthur, Jim Miller, Sherman and Pauline Jensen, Kevin MacDonald, Tom and Joan O’Connor, Patsy Pennington, Jeanine and Kevin O’Brien, Francine and Cees Boudewijn, William and Karen Collier, Matthew Steinmetz, Alex Trebek, Mike and Lauren Reese, Bette May, Rock and Amanda Rowse, Allen and Jennifer Gann, Madeline and Mike Hughes, Iris Detter, Dave and Edith Tully, Pam and Roy Lobenhofer, Dorothy Dweck, Wendy Palmer, Harvey and Roberta Chaplin, Mike and Joanne McMahon, Brian and Jennifer Bohling, Ross Perot, Martina and Andreas Regenauer, Ken and Barbara Melkus, Lionel Kaliff, Tom and Anita Veldman, Daniel Loeb, Candice Bergen, Michelle Jourdak, Dorothy Pauly, Nicole Burger and Mike Curtis, Sanjay and Sujatha Balan, RonnyJane Goldsmith, Roman Fuzaylov, Elizabeth Reeves, Beth Onosko, Piper and Norman Lind, Dickie Steele, Michele and Reese Bowan, Suzanne Bartolucci, Bob and Sally Weist, Teddy Howe, Jane Kaczmarek, Mel Selway, Jim and Doreen Cooney, John and Gaye Iorio, David Blachly, Sid and Neena Rieb, Ravi Varanasi, JJ Coneys, Ted and Susan Saraceno, Linda Reeves, Denis Cullen, Phillip and Holly Wagner, Peter Malkin, Geoff Dodge, Dave Masinick, Tom Darling, Chris Raleigh, Alan Ishac, Michaela Strain-Kokich, Dr. Drew Ordon, Sir Ben Kingsley, Bryan Cranston, Chris and Sherman Meloni, Ravi Kant, Dr. Anjali Sastry, Mark Atkinson, Dr. Atul Gawande, Howie Mandel, Eva Marie Bucher and Peter Widmer.

WonderWork provided three life-changing and inexpensive surgeries through our special programs for burns, club foot and blindness.

Our burn surgery program was called BurnRescue and it provided a 300 surgery that can can rebuild the face and or body of a child who has been severely burned.

Our club foot program was called First Step and it provided a $250 surgery/treatment that can cure club foot and help a crippled child stand, walk and run for the first time in their life.

Our blindness program was called 20/20/20 and it provided a $300 surgery that can give blind children their eyesight back in 15 minutes. The name 20/20/20 stood for 20/20 vision for 20 million blind children and adults.

My COO Delois Greenwood traveled tirelessly all over Asia and Africa and found us the best burn, blindness and orthopedic partner hospitals. Back in New York, we were busy building our fundraising program. Luckily, hundreds of major donors from The Smile Train followed us. Their start-up donations was critical to launching WonderWork and they helped us acquire almost 250,000 new donors through direct mail. Altogether we helped provide life-changing reconstructive surgery for thousands of severely burned children and adults. 5,000+ children who were born crippled with club foot. And we helped restore the eyesight of 200,000 blind children and adults.

We also created viral videos about blindness, club foot and burns that were viewed by more than 20 million people all around the world. These videos generated donations from 92 countries including Kazakhstan.

WonderWork surgeries were growing faster than Smile Train

WonderWork: highest surgeries-per-employee of any surgical charity in America.

Thanks to the hard work, dedication and experience of our management team, WonderWork was actually growing much faster than Smile Train did when it started. And it had the potential to become a much larger charity because burns, blindness and club foot were much larger problems than clefts.

In our first five years, we raised more than $50 million and we helped provide almost 250,000 surgeries. By June 2016, we had more than $21 million in the bank and an approved budget to fund 135,000+ surgeries in 2017. And we did all of this with a tiny team of less than 10 people working out of a tiny office in New York City.

2016 was our best year ever. It was also our last.

In December, 2016, lawyers who worked for my Smile Train Co-founder, Charles Wang, forced WonderWork into bankruptcy. This was the culmination of many years of lawsuits, allegations, legal attacks, dirty tricks, sabotage and interference orchestrated by Wang and his lawyers, and another charity Wang conspired with called HelpMeSee. In 2011, Wang publicly announced that he was going to destroy me and he did. He also sued and destroyed my co-workers, our charity, WonderWork our partners, our vendors, our directors and our auditors. It began the first week we opened our office in 2011 when our most important direct mail vendor resigned after Wang’s lawyers threatened them. And it continued for more than a decade.

Wang’s lawyers sued me, my charity, my directors, co-workers, partners, vendors, lawyers and auditors in Federal Court, New York State Court, the High Court of Justice in the UK, Federal Arbitration and Federal Bankruptcy Court.

Wang’s personal employees and lawyers created fake websites to disparage and defame me. They disseminated hundreds of pages of negative content about me to websites that agreed to post it. They leaked false information, accusations and allegations to the media in the UK and the U.S.. And made made false statements about me and WonderWork in court and legal proceedings.

Wang’s employees and lawyers threatened all of WonderWork’s major vendors and got them to quit working with us.

Many of WonderWork’s major partner hospitals were offered bribes to stop working with WonderWork. When they refused some were threatened with legal action.

After 10 years of attacks, Wang’s lawyers finally succeeded and forced WonderWork into bankruptcy in 2016 and then out of business in 2018.

For all of their lawsuits, threats and dirty work, Wang’s lawyers were paid almost $25 million. Wang, who was once worth almost $1 billion, did not pay for any of these legal fees. He arranged for Smile Train and HelpMeSee to pay for all of his lawyers’ legal fees.

Throughout the entire bankruptcy process, there was never a single mention of WonderWork’s patients or the work that we did. Or the fact that by forcing WonderWork out of business, 135,000 children and adults would not receive receive surgery in 2017. Or 2018. Or 2019…. When WonderWork disappeared, no charity stepped in and provided the surgeries we were providing. Like vultures, for almost two years, dozens of lawyers bickered, fought and carved up the $21 million in cash that WonderWork had when we were forced into bankruptcy.

WonderWork had $16 million in donations in the banl when Wang’s lawyers forced it into bankruptcy, that were restricted for surgeries but not one penny of those donations ever went to WonderWork partners for surgeries as our donors intended.